H5N1

Canada: Background on the E. coli story

Via last May's issue of the excellent magazine Alberta Views, an article providing context on the biggest beef recall in Canadian history: Cut to the Bone. Excerpt:

If you eat Alberta beef tonight, odds are it was processed by one of the 2,300 workers at the sprawling XL Lakeside Packers facility just outside of Brooks. The plant is the largest slaughter house in Canada and the largest employer in the region. It began its life in the mid-1970s supplying cow carcasses to other companies. 

Today Lakeside produces boxed beef. Along with the smaller Cargill Meat Solutions in High River, the plant handles over 90 per cent of the cattle processed in the province. 

But who are these workers? Until the 1980s, meatpacking—in Brooks and elsewhere in Alberta—was a decent job. Workers were usually unionized and the pay was good. Edmonton’s four plants made it the meat packing capital of Western Canada. 

In just a few decades, everything changed. Salaries spiralled downward and jobs were concentrated in fewer and larger plants. The job became more demanding and more repetitive as line speeds increased. Fewer and fewer Albertans were interested in the job, so the packing companies started to recruit from farther and farther away. 

Now Alberta’s remaining meatpacking plants are changing again, looking to an even more vulnerable workforce—temporary foreign workers (TFWs). These men and women, recruited from some of the poorest countries in the world, don’t have the same protections as refugees or landed immigrants. Losing their job at Lakeside doesn’t just mean unemployment, for example; it can mean being kicked out of the country. 

For Brooks, these changes have meant a population boom and the challenge of providing services to a constant influx of newcomers. Over the last 15 or so years, the city has gone from being a white, blue-collar prairie community to being a multicultural boomtown—“The City of 100 Hellos.” For meatpackers—formerly members of Alberta’s urban working class—these changes have seen them pushed to the province’s margins.

India: Japanese encephalitis immunisation drive starts December 1

Via The Times of India: JE immunisation drive from December 1. Excerpt:

LUCKNOW: The state health department would launch a dedicated Japanese Encephalitis vaccination campaign from December 1. 

In the month-long campaign, children in the 1.5-15 years age group will be given anti-JE shots. The programme would be launched in all districts coming under Gorakhpur, Devipatan, Basti and Lucknow divisions. 

Orders to this effect were issued by nodal officer, vector-borne diseases control programme late on Friday night. Officials also informed that routine immunisation would be addressed adequately in the encephalitis hit districts. "The CMOs have been told to supervise and monitor both RI and JE vaccination," said an officer. 

The state government has also directed panchyati raj and rural development departments to launch special cleanliness and safe drinking water campaigns in the affected area from April to check acute encephalitis syndrome deaths more than half of which are caused by strains of entero virus. The virus comes in the air or water through open defecation and circulates mainly through shallow hand pumps in the area. The disease season starts in August with monsoons and ends at the onset of winters in late October or early November. 

After a field visit, the NCPCR felt that whatever steps the UP government had taken, are nothing more than claims. 

"Their plans have not moved an inch in the field. The commission feels that the approach has been quite casual on the count and is solely responsible for the death of the children," said member Yogesh Dube who has been keeping a track of encephalitis. 

The commission would now review the progress on encephalitis on a quarterly basis.

Cambodia: "Hemorrhagic dengue fever goes on"

Click through to the Kantha Bopha Hospitals website, and then click on "Kantha Bopha in September 2012." Dr. Beat Richner has posted a PDF on the statistics for his hospitals. Some of those numbers:

September admissions for severe hemorrhagic dengue fever (HDF) at Kantha Bopha in Phnom Penh: 1,532.

September admissions for severe HDF at Kantha Bopha III in Siem Reap Angkor: 1,632.

Admissions to both hospitals for severe HDF from January 1 to September 30: 24,199.

Canada: Possible E. coli case in British Columbia

Via CBC News British Columbia: B.C. probes possible E. coli case linked to beef recall. Excerpt:

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control is investigating a possible case of E. coli sickness that could be linked to contaminated beef from the XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alta. 

Carol Swan with the B.C. CDC says a patient was treated by the Vancouver Island Health Authority. 

"We are waiting to see if we have a confirmed case of the E. coli related to the beef recall and at this point we do not have a confirmed case," Swan said. 

Swan couldn't say how sick the patient is, but says results likely won't come back until Sunday.

Nothing yet on the BCCDC or VIHA sites, but I'll be watching for more on this story.

A note from Bali about H5N1 (updated)

This evening I got a very interesting email:

Interestingly, your blog is blocked by at least one web provider over here (I'm in Denpasar, Bali, right now).

<<The site you're trying to access was categorized in: Pornography, Malware, Botnet or Phishing>>

 It's not an issue with Typepad—the Writing for the Web blog comes through just fine. 

And the chickens? They're everywhere, mixing it up with pigs (at least in Bali) and everybody else.

Perhaps this explains why so little of my traffic comes from Indonesia. I'm flattered, I guess, but also discouraged. If the Indonesian authorities are really so clueless as to think my H5N1 blog is some kind of problem, they're also too clueless to deal with their real H5N1 problem.

Update: My correspondent writes again:

I'm now on a beach in Jimbaran in south Bali, and here, using the big Telkomsel phone network, I can see the blog. So apparently it's not a national thing. Maybe someone was incensed by your critique!

Nigeria: 28 million oral polio vaccines for immunization exercise

Via allAfrica.com, a report from Leadership: Nigeria: FG Releases 28 Million Oral Polio Vaccines for Immunisation Exercise. Excerpt:

The National Primary Health Care Development Agency says the Federal Government has released 28 million Oral Polio Vaccines for immunisation exercise in polio high risk states. 

This is contained in a statement signed by Mr Saadu Salahu, the Head, Public Relations Unit of the agency, in Abuja on Friday. 

Dr Ado Muhammad, the Executive Director of the agency, said the vaccines had been released for the success of the exercise in this month's campaign in these high risk states. 

According to him, more than 25 million under-five children will be immunised during the supplementary immunisation exercise. 

Muhammad said the exercise would be carried out in 12 polio high risk states in the north from Oct. 6 to Oct. 9. 

He said the exercise was designed specifically to immunise every under-five child, especially those not immunised in the previous exercises. 

The 12 polio high risk states are: Borno, Yobe, Katsina, Bauchi, Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano and Niger.

Canada: Five more cases of E.coli linked to massive beef recall

Via CTV News: Five more cases of E.coli linked to massive beef recall. Click through for the full report plus a video. Excerpt:

Canada’s Public Health Agency confirmed Saturday that five more cases of E.coli illnesses have been linked to a massive beef recall involving Alberta’s XL Foods plant.   

Three cases of E.coli illness were confirmed in Alberta and two others in Quebec. 

Health officials said the illnesses stemmed from the same strain of E.coli that has been detected on contaminated beef products processed at the Brooks, Alta. XL Foods plant. 

Officials said all five individuals have already recovered. 

So far, seven of the 10 confirmed E. coli cases were in Alberta, with two cases in Quebec and one case in Newfoundland. 

Officials with the Public Health Agency said the strain of E.coli found at XL Foods, E.coli O157, has not been observed in Canada or the United States prior to the tainted beef recall. 

“We’re very confident that if you have this generic fingerprint in your E.coli, that you’re related to the XL situation,” said Dr. Frank Plummer during a teleconference on Saturday. 

Officials would not comment on the number of suspected cases of E.coli-related illnesses as the number is constantly changing.

Gorakhpur: 7 more children die of encephalitis, death toll rises to 372

Via IBN Live.in.com: Gorakhpur: 7 more children die of encephalitis, death toll rises to 372. Tracking encephalitis numbers isn't easy, but these appear to be the statistics for Gorakhpur alone, not for all of Uttar Pradesh state.

Gorakhpur: Seven more children died of encephalitis in the last 24 hours in Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College, Uttar Pradesh, taking the death toll to 372. 

CNN-IBN had learnt that nearly Rs 3350 crore was sanctioned by the government to battle the outbreak but with no improvement in the condition it seems the money never reached to those who needed it the most. 

After CNN-IBN highlighted the plight of the victims and their families, the Akhilesh Yadav government has now promised swift action. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on Thursday summoned senior officials. 

In the encephalitis ward of Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College, three children die on an average everyday. While most of the children are on ventilator support, doctors are fighting all odds to keep them alive but many parents have already run out of hope.

FluTrackers on Haiti's changing cholera numbers

Via FluTrackers, Ronan Kelly sounds as baffled as I am: Haiti - Daily MOH cholera reports - Official total 7,602 fatalities - Page 6 - FluTrackers.

On September 23rd the total was 7,602, on September 24th this changed to 7,530 without explanation. 

Updated to September 30th; http://www.mspp.gouv.ht/site/index.p...d=120&Itemid=1 

Total Fatalities: 7,555 

Cumulative hospitalizations: 325,414 

Cumulative cases: 597,977

Click through for his follow-up post, which locates the fall in deaths in Nord department and draws a couple of tentative conclusions.

Dominican Republic: Dengue attacks in 20 provinces, 45 cholera deaths this year

Via Hoy Digital, an October 3 report: Dengue ataca en 20 provincias. Excerpt, with translation:

Diez muertes por dengue, 3,538 casos probables de personas con la enfermedad y más de 20 provincias con alta incidencia hacen que el país tenga una situación epidémica. 

Ten dengue deaths, 3,538 probable cases, and over 20 provinces with a high incidence have created a national epidemic.

El doctor Rafael Schiffino, viceministro de Salud Colectiva y autor de los tres textos más importantes  que tiene el país sobre esta enfermedad,  dijo que la situación no es para alarmar pero aseguró que el país está ante una epidemia y que se debe evitar que se registre una mayor cantidad de muertes.

Dr. Rafael Schiffino, vice-minister of Public Health and author of the country's three most important texts on the disease, says that the situation is not alarming but affirmed that the country faces an epidemic and must prevent any more deaths.

The report also quotes Dr. Schiffino as saying that the DR has so far this year recorded 5,881 cholera cases and 45 deaths.